


if i told you (solitude fits me like a glove)

by shakina



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied Relationships, Introspection, Mukuro-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 16:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakina/pseuds/shakina
Summary: Ikusaba Mukuro has only ever loved two people. Like most things in her life, it's tearing her apart.





	if i told you (solitude fits me like a glove)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from You Should Know Where I'm Coming From by Banks, which you should totally listen to btw

_i._

 

He talks about hope the way your sister talks about despair, and you think that maybe everybody is addicted to something. You don't know if it's Mokoto or Junko that you couldn't live without, who you're addicted to; you obsess over them in different ways.

 

_ii._

 

When he touches you... When he touches you, it's heaven. No, not heaven. _Hell_. It's hell, and you love every minute of it. You're afraid of what you'd do just to make him smile at you. Not that it's hard. He's always smiling, Mokoto, you've noticed. Even when there are tears running down his face. Even when his hands clutch at empty air because he knows that if he asked you to stay, you would. You'd cling to him the way he clings to hope, and you'd never let go. He doesn't ask you to stay. You're jealous of the tears on his face because they get to stop existing the moment they stop touching him. Sometimes it feels like that'll happen to you too, as if his touch is the only thing tethering you to your body. You put on your clothes and leave anyway, and it's the biggest mistake you've ever made.

 

_iii._

 

It's not a gentle love that Junko offers you. If you can even call it love. Your sister was never meant to hold any softness or fragility in her body. Her words are weapons in a way that the gun at your hip never could be. ' _You're not you when you're with him,'_ she says when you come back from his room smiling. (And of course you come back; you always come back). _That's the point_ , you don't say. _Why would I want to be myself?_ She watches you for a moment from her bed, eyes calculating. She's grinning when she spares you one last contemplating glance. The words she mutters under her breath are quiet, but you still catch them before you sit down and they drum through your head. _How hopeless,_ becomes a mantra that you will repeat to yourself for the next two years.

 

_iv._

 

You learn to follow your instincts, and your instincts tell you not to let go of his hand. _Naegi's a smart person,_ you think to yourself, but the voice sounds suspiciously like Junko's. _He'll figure out that you don't deserve him eventually._ And you _don't_ . You don't deserve him. He holds nothing but light inside him, and it shines out of his every action, as if the light is literal and desperate to reach out. He's kind to everyone, has the capacity to treat everyone in a way that they immediately begin to crave. And it's not just that he's _nice_ to everyone, he genuinely cares about them. Even Junko, who makes it clear that she hates all of the things that make up Naegi Mokoto. Junko, who has tried to kill him on multiple occasions. Not that he knows that, not that you would ever let him find out, because then you'd be forced to _choose_ and you would honestly rather die. You don't doubt that you'll have to eventually, if Junko has anything to do with it. But, hey, maybe she'll just kill you instead. For your sister, it's always been about what causes the most despair, and you're selfish enough not to want to live to see the betrayal on Mokoto's face when he finds out.

 

_v._

 

Either way, it's a rigid dichotomy between them, best represented by Junko's beloved 'despair or hope' rants. You always watch her carefully when she falls into one of those episodes, even if it's from the corner of your eye so she doesn't notice. She always laughs the loudest when she's the most conflicted, the most determined, the most _hungry_. Sometimes you look at her and you see a crime scene; trampled over and marked as evidence of a tragedy. You think that if you look close enough you'll see the bloodstains, the murder weapon, the cause of the despair. But you blink too soon and the only thing you can see is the aftermath; the victim, a bloodied corpse with dead eyes, and the murderer, wild and uncontrollable – both living in the same body. Junko has always been her own worst enemy, and you doubt she'd ever have it any other way.

 

_vi._

 

You remember once, Junko asked you to make yourself hurt. You didn't ask _why should I?_ You didn't ask _for what purpose?_ You turned to her and, with apathy you still sometimes feel, asked her _how?_ Her eyes were bright and clear, smile bigger than you'd ever seen it. When she told you to surprise her, your eyes immediately went to the knife strapped to your thigh and her smile got impossibly larger. You think at least a part of her expected you to carve the knife into your own skin, but her eyes were unsurprised and knowing when you threw the knife and it embedded itself into her thigh. Later, lying in a hospital bed, your sister offered you one of her rare genuine smiles. _You're learning,_ she praised you, and her words now haunt you whenever you're alone with Mokoto.

 

_vii._

 

You would describe yourself as 'desperate', but it's just another word for 'broken'. And you _are_ , you are broken, shattered into a million tiny pieces and, hell, if you can find it within yourself to care enough to glue it all back together. At the end of the day, you're a soldier first and a person second. But somehow, impossibly, Junko is both, even if she doesn't wear a uniform or carry a weapon like you do. Your sister has always excelled where you have not; your shortcomings are so obvious next to her, especially when she points them out with a cruel smile. Junko has never stopped feeling things, never attempted to stifle her emotions like you always had to. Despite this, she still does terrible things, and you think, _this is it. This is what a monster truly is_.

 

You remember when you first came back from the front lines, how you stared blankly at your sister's smiling as she told you that your parents were dead. Some part of you cried out, demanded you seek revenge, have your pound of flesh. That part wanted to break down, wanted to scream and cry, wanted to rage and tear into someone until they stopped moving. The more dominant part of you was confused, the part of you that had been born with your sister's contempt and nurtured with the blood of countless others. The part of you that you wore like a mask that allowed you to commit atrocities and feel nothing. In the end, the apathetic side of you won, like it always wins, and you stared at Junko's sadistically expectant face and asked her ' _what does that have to do with me?'_

 

_viii._

 

He certainly wasn't the first person to ever smile at you; strangers do it as a reflex all the time and even Junko smiles when she insults you. However, he was the first to ever smile at you like he meant it, and the first to ever smile at you in a way that made you feel something. Something indescribable that was far beyond your understanding, beyond logic. It burned in your stomach and crept up your throat until you were left breathless. _This heat, it burns. This feeling... This is feeling?_

 

_ix._

 

There are three things that you've learned from watching your sister and her journey for despair:

 

  1. Not everybody gets a happy ending. A collapsing world and your face has been the last sights of many,
  2. Not everybody lives to see the ending at all. It gets hard to breathe when you think about all of the nameless people who died without ever knowing _why,_ and
  3. Not every story even has an ending. The world on fire and the people burning, but she is still not satisfied. Fourteen of your classmates locked in a building and she's still smiling as she tells you how you're going to die at her hand. ("He'll be close enough to watch it, but he won't remember that he loved you until _after_. How tragic for you. Dying not even loved by your precious Naegi.")



 

x.

 

The world ends. You build the school into a fortress, prisoners constructing their own prison around them while they celebrate their safety. Soon, they'll all be made to forget. Soon, they'll all start dying at their friends' hands. You'll be one of the first; you've seen your sister's plans. There's no way she's just going to trap you in a dungeon to set an example for the rest. You know Junko plans to kill you with the 'Spears of Gungnir', while disguised as her. She knows you know. You think she'd be disappointed to know that you aren't scared. In fact, you're glad you don't have to live to see all of your classmates die. Mokoto among them.

 

You could stop this. You could stop all of it. _Warn them_. Instead, you sigh and turn back to helping Asahina nail a board over a window. Naegi turns to look at you over his shoulder. When he notices you already staring at him, he blushes bright red to his roots and drops his hammer, much to the annoyance of Kirigiri. You memorise his sheepish face as he sheepishly apologises to her. And when he turns back to you again, you return the smile he sends you. You may never get another chance to do it again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and please leave a comment/kudos on your way out.


End file.
